Mosquitoes INSIDE!
UGH. There is nothing more annoying than trying to work, sleep, eat, or do ANYTHING when there is a mosquito buzzing around you. We've recently discovered mosquitoes INSIDE our house. It's been driving us batty. This crazy-making led us down a deep internet search to figure out where they are coming from and what to do about it (without poisoning ourselves, the children, and the dog).
We're Realtors, not entomologists, but we now know more about mosquitoes than we ever wanted to know. Adult, female mosquitoes lay their eggs on the inner, wet walls of containers with water, above the waterline and generally lay 100 eggs at a time. The eggs are very hardy; they stick to the walls of a container like glue and can survive drying out for up to 8 months—even in cooler temperatures. It only takes a very small amount of water to attract a female mosquito. Bowls, cups, fountains, barrels, vases and any other container storing water makes a great nursery for these baby biters. The life cycle, from egg to adult takes about 8-10 days. We needed to investigate.
We haven't seen a mosquito outside. Okay, once in a while, but we've done all the work to get rid of their habitats around the property. We've cleaned out any fallen leaves that could hold water, we clean the dog's bowl daily, and we don't have any standing water. The neighbors have a strange drainage system that left a constant puddle, so we helped them dry it up. All of our screens are tight and we generally keep doors closed. Could these little buggers be coming in on the dog? Possibly, but not in the quantities we see indoors. So, they're not coming in from outside.
We wondered if we might have standing water in the crawl space. As much as we hate to get down there, we donned the coveralls and old shoes and took a good look. Nothing. Just dust, which is fine. We found a quarter, so there's our payment for that icky task.
This left us to find standing water inside. We have a few houseplants that require very little water, so we cleaned the saucers under them and made sure that we don't over-water. The dog bowl gets cleaned and refreshed every day. We sometimes have fresh flowers in the house, but they don't keep for long enough to hatch mosquitoes. We don't have a humidifier or dehumidifier. What other standing water is in the house?
Then it dawned on us. Drains! No wonder we see mosquitoes in the bathrooms and the kitchen! We have two bathrooms in which one shower isn't used regularly and one tub isn't regularly used--not so rarely that the traps would dry up, but rarely enough that this is the most likely spot where mosquitoes could become mothers. While our friends suggested calling in an air strike, we thought that might be overkill. Here's what we did:
We removed bathroom drain covers and stoppers, did a deep clean of all the drains with bottle brushes, poured vinegar and baking soda to really get any eggs, and flushed them with very hot water. That's going to be a regular chore.
We got some lavendar essential oil to drop into the rarely-used drains to repel the tiny offenders between cleanings.
We brought in a few plants. Lavendar, rosemary and mint all emit smells that mosquitoes hate and that we love. We're just careful to not over-water.
We got a couple of UV mosquito traps. UV light attracts mosquitoes, and then the trap fan sucks insects into the glue board where mosquitoes are trapped for good. One of our favorite restaurants uses these and the chef recommended it. Bonus: it also catches fruit flies and other annoying things.
Hah! Mosquito problem solved. Goodbye, annoying little disease-spreaders. You won't be missed.